Federal Revenues Are Up 19% Since 2009, Why Do We Need More Taxes?

The conventional political wisdom is that Republicans have lost the argument on taxes. Obama won. Democrats held on in Congress. That means, according to some, that they have a mandate to raise taxes. Because, according to them, a big part of the nation’s deficit problem is lower tax revenues resulting from Bush-era tax cuts.

Unfortunately, this argument doesn’t match up with reality. This chart shows total direct federal revenues, by year, from 1992 through 2012 in nominal dollars:

There is a dip in revenues in 2001 and 2002 corresponding with the post-9/11 recession. Then there is a return to revenue growth even after the implementation of the Bush tax cuts beginning in 2003. That continues until 2008 and 2009 when the collapse of the housing market thrust the nation into a nasty and protracted recession.

But even since then, federal revenues have been growing, increasing roughly 19% over 2009 levels and nearly reaching our 2008 peak.

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